'If life were caught by a clarionet, <br />And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed, <br />Should thrill its joy and trill its fret, <br />And utter its heart in every deed, <br /> <br />'Then would this breathing clarionet <br />Type what the poet fain would be; <br />For none o' the singers ever yet <br />Has wholly lived his minstrelsy, <br /> <br />'Or clearly sung his true, true thought, <br />Or utterly bodied forth his life, <br />Or out of life and song has wrought <br />The perfect one of man and wife; <br /> <br />'Or lived and sung, that Life and Song <br />Might each express the other's all, <br />Careless if life or art were long <br />Since both were one, to stand or fall: <br /> <br />'So that the wonder struck the crowd, <br />Who shouted it about the land: <br />`His song was only living aloud, <br />His work, a singing with his hand!''<br /><br />Sidney Lanier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/life-and-song/
